-GRISTMedia.com In the course of my work as part of a team set up to look into the socio-economic status of Adivasi communities, there were several things I learned about the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and the amendments to it. Here are some important questions about land and the Act that we should be asking: * What is the State's relationship to land and its citizens? This a key question - and one...
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Toilets for all by March: Bengal's Nadia district does its own 'Swachh Bharat' without extra funds
-PTI Kolkata: West Bengal's Nadia district is poised to complete building toilets for all its residents by next March, under a programme which has been shortlisted for the United Nations global award for public service. Nadia district magistrate P B Salim told PTI that 95 percent of the people had already stopped defecating in the open and by this March they would achieve a 100 percent open defecation-free status. His scheme "Sobar...
More »Schooling trap -Yamini Aiyar
-The Indian Express The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released last week forced India's policymakers, yet again, to confront the unfortunate realities of our primary education system. In its 10-year history, ASER has challenged the fundamental assumption of elementary education policy: that the expansion of the schooling system would ensure that children learn. Indeed, in the last decade, while the Centre was able to expand the system through the provision...
More »What has ten years of RTI achieved? -Pamela Philipose
-The Tribune The biggest lesson of the last 10 years since the Right to Information Act came into force is that Indian democracy, if it has to be meaningful, has to have a strong, effective RTI regime. That regime has to be equally owned by those who govern and those who are governed. TEN years after the Right to Information Act promised the country a "practical regime of right to information for...
More »Tiger population on the rise, India home to more than 2,000 big cats -Chetan Chauhan
-The Hindustan Times Tiger population in India is estimated to be 2,226 in 2014, according to a new report released on Tuesday. The big cat population in 2010 was an estimated 1,706. The number in the central Indian landscape had gone down four years ago. "While the tiger population is falling in the world, it is rising in India. It is a great news," environment minister Prakash Javadekar said. "Never before such an exercise...
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